Once Upon a Dream
by Unique Sandwich
Summary: Fuuma's Dreamgazing ability is not like anyone else's.


**Once Upon a Dream**  
by Kelsey   
  
Disclaimer: CLAMP owns all, including my soul.  
  
Warnings: Entirely too depressing.  
  
Notes: I don't know where this idea came from, but it's the reason I haven't gone to bed yet, despite being exhausted. See Fuuma. See Fuuma angst.  
  
--  
  
The happiest of his dreams cause him the most sorrow, because they are not really dreams.  
  
When his mother died, he dreamed of her under the oldest tree on the temple grounds, her head in Tohru-san's lap, Kotori and Kamui curled beside them, sound asleep. He could feel as well as see the inherent perfection of that picture, the way soft blonde waves blended into tousled brown strands blended into gentle black shadows cast by the tree. Leaf patterns danced over them, across Kamui's nose.  
  
They were beautiful without him. Them, he corrected himself, as he felt his father's hand on his shoulder. Father was smiling, somehow, at the picture they made, a smile wrapped in misery but still an expression of joy. Fuuma returned the expression. He was ten years old, and he returned it.  
  
Their hearts broke with the dream, a shattering of exquisite stained glass. The pieces lay shining around him as he knelt in a landscape of black and drifting white feathers, knelt and cried with a sorrow too great even for his precocity. He could not comprehend the meaning of his emotions, but he felt them nonetheless. And a tired, pale man knelt beside him and smoothed his hair, murmuring, "Little one, don't cry, don't cry..."  
  
He woke with only a lingering memory of loneliness, of not belonging, the feeling of being an extra piece to an already complete puzzle. It hung heavy in his mind and he could not bring himself to rise from his bed. Was there any point?  
  
Then he remembered that Father and Kotori needed him, and he brushed his own unhappiness aside.  
When he learned that Kamui had moved away, he dreamed of a sunflower field and watching Kamui and Kotori play hide-and-seek with each other, leaping out to pounce from behind tall green stalks. Warmth rose from the baked earth and he chewed on a blade of grass, only the semblance of drowsiness in his features. He watched the other two closely. Once he called out before Kamui could trip over a rock.  
  
Then Kamui smiled at him, eyes large and violet and trusting, and the dream shattered once more.  
  
He turned over the glass pieces of the heartbreak from the other night and found it changed when viewed from another angle. On this night, he wept for the loss of a dear friend, a much-loved one. He missed Kamui. He missed Mother. Would either ever come back?  
  
He cried, and the pale man stood beside him. Grieved with him, yet not with him, because he felt the loss of a different person.  
  
When he woke, he found Kotori clinging to him, whispering in a little voice that she didn't want the Earth to break. He told her that he would keep her safe in an earthquake and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. He wondered at the differences between her dreams and his.  
  
He was glad that she never noticed the tears on his cheeks.  
  
When Kamui made his Choice, he dreamed the worst dream of all, and this time he recognized it as something that might have been, were Fate a gentler mistress. His talent as a _yumemi_ was warped; he could not see what was true, but what he ached for. Ached.  
  
He dreamed that Kotori had gone over a friend's house to finish a school project. He and Kamui lay sprawled next to each other on his bed, watching raindrops streak the windowpane. Not an unusual position for them in years past, but an indefinable something had changed, and it wasn't just their ages.  
  
He discovered that his hands felt good in Kamui's hair, that he couldn't touch it enough to satisfy what burned in him. The younger boy closed his eyes, humming a little with pleasure, mouth turned up in a smile.  
  
The first kiss came as something of a surprise to both of them. A pleasant one, but still something unexpected. His mouth filled with serendipity as the kiss became more than a simple brushing of lips, a warm melting, thrilling and comforting and completing. It was not the passionate first kiss of the movies; rather, it _was_ passionate, but it lay sweetly with gentleness and no violence lurked in his hand as he ran it down Kamui's back.  
  
He kissed Kamui again, and then again, and then again, over and over because he could not stop. Sometimes he only caught the corner of his mouth but then seconds passed and they were connected at the mouth again, and now Kamui's hands were in _his_ hair and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. The thin fabric of Kamui's shirt bunched and twisted as Fuuma trailed a hand over bare skin, soft and delicate as a flower petal, but warm.  
  
One more kiss, then one more after that, and he found himself pulling back so he could meet Kamui's gaze. He looked charming there on the pillow, cheeks and lips flushed. He touched Kamui's face and found himself saying something. "Kamui, I..."  
  
This time, it was he who shattered the dream.  
  
Shards rained down around him as his hands shook with the greatest heartbreak ever brought on by the dreams, and yet he could not find release in tears. Would not. He pressed trembling hands to his face and then whipped them away, palms stinging from the contact with his mouth, all the non-kisses there.  
  
When he woke up, he wanted to die.  
  
Then he heard the ancient groaning of the Earth, and got out of bed.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
